In possibly the most classic “David Lesh” news to ever hit headlines, the founder of outerwear company Virtika survived crashing his plane into Half Moon Bay near San Francisco, California, after the engine failed yesterday, August 20, 2019.
The notorious bad-boy stuntman was out in California for a photoshoot of his new Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft he had just purchased a few weeks ago. Lesh and a second passenger were on their way to fly over the Golden Gate Bridge when the plane’s engine lost power. After unsuccessfully attempting to get the engine working again, the plane hit the water within about a minute of Lesh realizing there was a problem.
“It skipped along the water a few times. There was like no impact. We were totally fine,” Lesh described to ABC7’s Amanda del Castillo. “Got the door open right away, we piled out. I grabbed my phone, grabbed some stuff to float with and we stood on the wing as long as the plane was floating which was probably 30 seconds or 40 seconds.”
Owen Leipelt was piloting the lead plane with Lesh’s photographer on-board and the two watched as Lesh’s Beechcraft Bonanza made impact into the harbor.
“At one point I lost them,” Leipelt said in that same ABC7 article. “I had been circling and I couldn’t see them anymore, and David called me on the phone as he was bobbing in the water. He turned me around and he guided me right to where he was.”
Leipelt immediately contacted the U.S. Coast Guard and other than a few jelly fish stings, Lesh and his passenger were rescued virtually unharmed. In true David Lesh style, he recorded pretty much the entire event on his iPhone, for your viewing pleasure.
